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The drop bear (sometimes dropbear) is a hoax in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory, carnivorous version of the koala. This imaginary animal is commonly spoken about in tall tales designed to scare tourists. While koalas are typically docile herbivores (and are not bears), drop bears are described as unusually large and vicious marsupials that inhabit treetops and attack unsuspecting people (or other prey) that walk beneath them by dropping onto their heads from above. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
The origin of the drop bear myth is unknown. It has been attributed to a sketch in The Paul Hogan Show in which koalas jump out of the trees and attack a man. However, others say it began as a scary story for children, or as a trick played on soldiers visiting Australia for training. [7]
A 1967 article in Army , the Australian Army's newspaper, mentions "a dreaded Drop Bear", [8] and a 1976 article about an army base refers to "the legends and stories of drop bears and hoop snakes that supposedly originated there". [9] Other early appearances in print include a Royal Australian Navy News article in 1978 [10] and a classified advertisement in the Canberra Times in 1982. [7]
Stories about drop bears are generally used as an in-joke intended to frighten and confuse outsiders while amusing locals, similar to North American "fearsome critters" such as the jackalope. [11] Tourists are the main targets of such stories. [12] [13] These tales are often accompanied by advice that the hearer adopt various tactics purported to deter drop bear attacks—including placing forks in the hair, having Vegemite or toothpaste spread behind the ears or in the armpits, urinating on oneself, and only speaking English in an Australian accent. [5] [14]
The website of the Australian Museum contains an entry for the drop bear written in a serious tone similar to entries for other, real, species. The entry classifies the drop bear as Thylarctos plummetus and describes them as "a large, arboreal, predatory marsupial related to the koala", the size of a leopard, having coarse orange fur with dark mottling, with powerful forearms for climbing and attacking prey, and a bite made using broad powerful premolars rather than canines. Specifically it states that they weigh 120 kilograms (260 lb) and have a length of 130 centimetres (51 in). [15] The tongue-in-cheek entry was created for "silly season". [16] [17] The Australian Museum also established a small display in the museum itself, exhibiting artefacts which it stated "may, or may not, relate to actual drop bears." [17]
Australian Geographic ran an article on its website on 1 April 2013 (April Fools' Day) purporting that researchers had found that drop bears were more likely to attack tourists than people with Australian accents. [18] The article was based on a 2012 paper published in Australian Geographer, and despite referencing the Australian Museum entry on drop bears in several places, images included with the Australian Geographic article were sourced from Australian Geographer and did not match the Australian Museum's species description. [5] [15] [18]
The drop bear hoax, using a polar bear, was humorously referenced in an advertisement for Bundaberg Rum. [19]
In the Discworld novel The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett, drop bears inhabit the continent of Fourecks, [lower-alpha 1] a land portrayed as a parody of Australia. This version of the drop bear tale shows the animals with well-padded backsides to cushion their fall. [20]
Australian Chris Toms and New Zealand musician Johnny Batchelor formed a band named "The Dropbears" in 1981. [21]
Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a large and hairy human-like mythical creature said to inhabit forests in North America, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Bigfoot is featured in both American and Canadian folklore, and since the mid-20th century has grown into a cultural icon, permeating popular culture and becoming the subject of its own distinct subculture.
Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, the chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, or the Mokele-mbembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture. Because it does not follow the scientific method, cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience by mainstream science: it is neither a branch of zoology nor of folklore studies. It was originally founded in the 1950s by zoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson.
The chupacabra or chupacabras is a legendary creature, or cryptid, in the folklore of parts of the Americas. The name comes from the animal's reported vampirism—the chupacabra is said to attack and drink the blood of livestock, including goats.
The koala, sometimes called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae. Its closest living relatives are the wombats. The koala is found in coastal areas of the island's eastern and southern regions, inhabiting Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is easily recognisable by its stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and large, dark nose. The koala has a body length of 60–85 cm (24–33 in) and weighs 4–15 kg (8.8–33.1 lb). Fur colour ranges from silver grey to chocolate brown. Koalas from the northern populations are typically smaller and lighter in colour than their counterparts further south. These populations possibly are separate subspecies, but this is disputed.
The thylacine, also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The thylacine died out in New Guinea and mainland Australia around 3,600–3,200 years ago, prior to the arrival of Europeans, possibly because of the introduction of the dingo, whose earliest record dates to around the same time, but which never reached Tasmania. Prior to European settlement, around 5,000 remained in the wild on Tasmania. Beginning in the nineteenth century, they were perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty hunting was introduced. The last known of its species died in 1936 at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine is widespread in popular culture and is a cultural icon in Australia.
Urban legends is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not.
Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials of the family Vombatidae that are native to Australia. Living species are about 1 m (40 in) in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between 20 and 35 kg. They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of southern and eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as an isolated patch of about 300 ha in Epping Forest National Park in central Queensland.
A hoax is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible.
The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns. The word jackalope is a portmanteau of jackrabbit and antelope. Many jackalope taxidermy mounts, including the original, are made with deer antlers.
The Great Wall of China hoax was a faked newspaper story concocted on June 25, 1899, by four reporters in Denver, Colorado about bids by American businesses on a contract to demolish the Great Wall of China and construct a road in its place. The story was reprinted by a number of newspapers.
The Kellas cat is a large black cat found in Scotland. It is an interspecific hybrid between the Scottish wildcat and the domestic cat. Once thought to be a mythological wild cat, with its few sightings dismissed as hoaxes, a specimen was killed in a snare by a gamekeeper in 1984 and found to be a hybrid between the Scottish wildcat and domestic cat. It is not a formal cat breed, but a population of felid hybrids. It is named after the village of Kellas, Moray, where it was first found.
The mammals of Australia have a rich fossil history, as well as a variety of extant mammalian species, dominated by the marsupials, but also including monotremes and placentals. The marsupials evolved to fill specific ecological niches, and in many cases they are physically similar to the placental mammals in Eurasia and North America that occupy similar niches, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution. For example, the top mammalian predators in Australia, the Tasmanian tiger and the marsupial lion, bore a striking resemblance to large canids such as the gray wolf and large cats respectively; gliding possums and flying squirrels have similar adaptations enabling their arboreal lifestyle; and the numbat and anteaters are both digging insectivores. Most of Australia's mammals are herbivores or omnivores.
In North American folklore and American mythology, fearsome critters were tall tale animals jokingly said to inhabit the wilderness in or around logging camps, especially in the Great Lakes region. Today, the term may also be applied to similar fabulous beasts.
Koala emblems and popular culture deals with the uses which have been made of the image of the koala, such as coins, emblems, logos, mascots and in the naming of sports teams.
Mothman, in West Virginian folklore, is a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register, dated November 16, 1966, titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something". The national press soon picked up the reports and helped spread the story across the United States. The source of the legend is believed to have originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes or herons.
Australian mythology stems largely from Europeans who colonised the country from 1788, subsequent domestic innovation, as well as other immigrant and Indigenous Australian traditions, many of which relate to Dreamtime stories. Australian mythology survives through a combination of word of mouth, historical accounts and the continued practice and belief in Dreamtime within Aboriginal communities.
The Walgren Lake Monster is a cryptid of varying description reported in Walgren Lake near Hay Springs, Nebraska.